Review for Your Lovely Smile

Introduction

Boutique labels tend to specialise, even going as far as concentrating on a specific genre. Some labels become synonymous with kung fu, some with horror, some with Italian Giallo, and you come to associate them in your mind. Third Window Films’ output is pretty eclectic; they tend to go for what is special, unique even, often opting for films, even independent films far removed from the mainstream. But even Third Window Films can be said to have a preferred genre. If you look at their back catalogue, and consider the statistical probabilities of genre diversity, you’ll find a more than expected number of films about films, and the making of films. From Lowlife Love, via One Percenter, to One Cut of the Dead, Top Knot Detective, Antiporno, Uzumasa Limelight, Behind the Camera, The Woodsman and the Rain... When I try and think of Hollywood movies of that nature that I have seen, I stop counting after Bowfinger. Your Lovely Smile is an ode to the small independent cinema.

Hirobumi Watanabe is a director of independent films who isn’t making movies. He spends most of his time in his home town, mooching off his family, and hanging out with friends, and when his mentor comes to visit, blagging some opportunities. But the opportunity comes from an unlikely place, Okinawa, where a rich guy wants to impress his girlfriend by starring with her in a movie, and he’ll pay Watanabe to direct and write it. Inspiration eludes Watanabe with just as much facility as it did back home, so instead he sets off on a journey north through Japan, trying to get the independent cinemas that he encounters on the way to run a retrospective of his previous films.

The Disc

Your Lovely Smile gets a 1.85:1 widescreen 1080p transfer on this disc, with DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround Japanese audio with optional English subtitles. It’s an independent film, most likely with a budget indicative of that, and we get a nice, clean transfer of a digitally shot film. The image is clear and sharp, detail levels are good, but the contrast is adequate and colours are somewhat muted. The audio is fine, although this isn’t a film that demands immersion. The dialogue is clear throughout, and the subtitles are accurately timed, although I saw one typo; ‘amenities’ spelt as ‘amenites”. There is some sparsely used, but rather appropriate mellow jazz in the soundtrack which suits the film well.

The images used in this review were kindly supplied by Third Window Films.

Extras

The disc boots to an animated menu, and you get the following extras.

Interview with Director Kah Wai Lim (29:00)
Interview with Film Festival Programmer Yoshi Yatabe (20:14)
Deleted Scenes (23:48)
Trailer (1:45)

Conclusion

You can take Your Lovely Smile at face value, but it gets a little mind-bending if you contemplate it for a minute. Hirobumi Watanabe is a genuine independent filmmaker (and occasional actor), who has his own production company, Foolish Piggies Films along with his brother Yuji Watanabe, who composes the music for the productions. (Third Window Films actually released his 2013 film, And The Mudship Sails Away as part of the New Directors From Japan kick-starter) Many of the cinema owners that we meet in the film actually own and run those independent film outlets. Many of the cast, aren’t actually actors, and instead are merely in the roles that they do in real life. Director Kah Wai Lim has taken these real people, this real world, and twisted a little fiction out of it. It makes for an interesting movie, although it feels a little wayward and uncertain. I could see four films in potentia here, although only one of them felt like it was going somewhere.

When the film begins, we’re introduced to Hirobumi Watanabe, the filmmaker lacking for inspiration, mooching around his hometown, doing anything but making movies. He’s spending time thinking about making films, and hanging with his friends. There’s a slacker vibe to the situation that put me in mind of Jay and Silent Bob, and I wouldn’t have minded if the film carried on in that vein; an exploration of empty ambition and ill-spent lives. But really this is just the introduction to the main character, and the tone changes once he blags himself a directing job in Okinawa.


He’s got himself a directing gig, and it is in a veritable paradise, but it turns out that he blagged a blagger. His new employer is hardly a creative talent; he’s just a rich obnoxious jerk, impressing a girl with power and money, and Hirobumi is the trained monkey he wants to jump through hoops to make a movie starring him and his girlfriend. Hirobumi has to max out the subservience, in order to prolong the job long enough for him to come up with a script, but writer’s block serves to sabotage him. For me this was the weakest act of the film; a little too conventional and somewhat clichéd, but it serves to get the main character to Okinawa, where he begins his journey through Japan.

He’s pointed to an independent cinema in Okinawa, and he gets the idea that they can show his previous films, maybe even organise a retrospective. It isn’t the best time, the height of the COVID pandemic, with declining audiences, and where those few successful theatres are turning away from independent film to more mainstream fare. But as he travels north, visiting various cinemas and generating good vibes, his fortunes begin to change. Around this time, he has an encounter with a call girl that makes such an impression on him, that he starts seeing her face in every new place he visits. It’s as if she becomes something of a muse to him. There is a magical, ethereal tone to this act that really drew me in.


The epilogue of the film is a little speculative oddity though, with Hirobumi having travelled the length of the country, from tropical Okinawa to the arctic winters of Hokkaido, only this final stopping point on the journey turns out in a completely different way, and it seems a rather odd development. It reminds me of the old aphorism, “those who can’t do, teach”. Here, those who can’t make movies, wind up exhibiting them instead. It’s a bit of a downbeat ending for an independent director, but it makes sense as the film is an ode to the quirkiness of the independent cinema theatre.

Your Lovely Smile is an interesting film, but it’s four movies in one; two of which would work as full features. Wannabe filmmakers slacking around a dead-end town sounds like a fun concept, while there was something magical about a road trip through Japan’s independent cinemas, punctuated by almost unreal encounters with an enigmatic muse. Regardless, Your Lovely Smile is well worth a watch, and is available on Blu-ray direct from Third Window’s distributor, Arrow Video, from Terracotta, and from mainstream distributors (although probably not Amazon).